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Acclaimed poet Kevin Young gathers here a chorus of voices that tells the story of the Africans who mutinied onboard the slave ship Amistad. Written over twenty years, this poetic epic—part libretto, part captivity epistle—makes the past present, and even its sorrows sing.

In “Buzzard,” the opening section, we hear from the African interpreter for the rebels, mostly from Sierra Leone, who were captured on their winding attempt to sail home and were jailed in New Haven. In “Correspondance,” we encounter the remarkable letters to John Quincy Adams and others that the captives write from jail, where abolitionists taught them English while converting them to Christianity. In lines profound and pointed, the men demand their freedom in their newfound tongue: “All we want is make us free.” The book culminates in “Witness,” a libretto chanted by Cinque, the rebel leader, who yearns for his family and freedom while eloquently evoking the Amistads’ conversion and life in “Merica.”

As Young conjures this array of history and music, interweaving the liberation cry of Negro spirituals and the indoctrinating wordplay of American primers, he delivers his signature songlike immediacy at the service of a tremendous epic built on the ironies, violence, and virtues of American history. Vivid and true, Ardency is a powerful meditation on who we’ve been and who we are.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The story of the Amistad is widely known: enslaved Africans on a Spanish ship sailing from Cuba in 1839 took over the schooner and sailed to the United States. Put in jail in New Haven, the Amistad rebels found assistance from American abolitionists when they faced trial: finally they were allowed to return to Sierra Leone. The prolific Young (Dear Darkness) has organized a big and varied book around that story. The strongest part, called a libretto, consists largely of short-lined, intense poems sung, spoken, or thought by the rebel leader Cinque, who muses often on Christian providence: "Our shroud a sail—/ heaven our home—// we compass/ our helpless bones." Stanzaic poems at the start and the end of the volume follow the Amistad Africans in America and after their return, giving voice to perhaps a dozen characters: "My calling is to vanish," says the free black translator James Covey, "finish/ the thoughts others don't know/ they own." The famous story becomes a microcosm of everything wrong with American, and Atlantic, history. As with Young's previous ambitious book-length projects (such as a verse life of Jean-Michel Basquiat), the book taken as a whole is more powerful than some of the individual poems. That whole is impressive indeed. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

*Starred Review* Many elements converge in Young�s depthless and transporting poetic inquiry into the signal story of the Amistad rebels. Here is this much-celebrated poet�s passion for music, teasing wordplay, life-raft irony, and plunging insights into African American resistance to tyranny and oppression. In this tour de force, the fruit of 20 years of research and creative effort, Young looks to two helmsmen, Cinque, the leader of the slave-ship mutiny who tells his tale in a libretto titled �Witness,� and, in a ravishing cycle of extended sonnets, James Covey, a fellow North African who served as translator for the jailed rebels once abolitionists rallied to their cause. Young writes with electrifying insight and ringing concision about the spiritual conundrums the rebels faced when they converted to Christianity, and the determination they mustered as they learned English and fought for their freedom. In lancing poems in the form of letters, spirituals, a minstrel show, reading primers, scripture, sermons, and prayers, Young empathizes with the captured men and women longing for home, illuminates the cultural context in which their now-legendary drama unfolded and the clamorous exploitation of their struggle, and delves into the ways language conceals and coerces, reveals and liberates. Young�s oceanic choral work calls for, and rewards, the reader�s full and active involvement. --Donna Seaman

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

I am a huge fan of Kevin Young, and what I like best about his work is his deft is his fresh approach to each subject. He has a distinct voices in his poetry, yes, but his approach to subject matter changes a great deal. His work can be, in turns, infused by the blues, by the news, by lyrics, by words scrawled on paintings, by snippets from interviews, by everyday vernacular, by cookbooks, by family, by friends, and even by strangers who say interesting things and then disappear into the ether.

Even so, I was unprepared for "Ardency," Young's latest book, which explores true American story of the Amistad (a slave ship which experienced mutiny led by the enslaved Africians, who were later brought to trial in the US). Young was studying and writing about this story long before Steven Spielberg's movie by the same name, and the collection which has been nutured over this long period of time is a triumph.

Please know that you do not need an intimate knowledge of the Amistad to enjoy the book. Young begins the collection with a summary of events, and then explains how this book is broken down into three parts: "Buzzard" in the voice of James Covey, the Africian interpreteter for the imprisoned Africans; "Correspondence," which consists of letters from speeches from jail; and "Witness," a `libretto spoken/sung' by the leader of the Amistad rebellion which takes up the majority of the book.

There is a tendency with historical writers to (sometimes unconsciously) infused their writing with foreshadowing, with a sense of knowledge of what's to come. What's so interesting about Young's choice is that he presents the poems almost in "real time," as if events are really unfolding, with know idea of how things are going to work out.Read more ›

More About the Author

Kevin Young is the author of six books of poetry, most recently Dear Darkness, named one of the Best Books of 2008 by National Public Radio's All Things Considered, and winner of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance Award in poetry. His book Jelly Roll: A Blues was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and won the Paterson Poetry Prize. He is the editor of four other volumes, including Blues Poems, Jazz Poems, and the Library of America's John Berryman: Selected Poems. The curator of literary collections and the Raymond Danowski Poetry Library and Atticus Haygood Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory University, Young lives in Boston and Atlanta.